Too big to fail!
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| Very big scary dinosaur creature: DEAD!! |
Big things have always intrigued me. Is size really everything? It has been on everyone’s mind for ever. Men and lots of women. Jokes and innuendos aside. I think size is overrated in most situations.
To illustrate my point I would like to start with nature itself. Let’s see now. Oh yes, dinosaurs. Big old fuckers. Right? Think of it. You are dinosaur. Munching over a football pitch away for breakfast. Giving it large for over 160 million years. They had bones the size of your car. Teeth bigger than your washing machine. Claws the size of your printer. And in a hip-hop stylee kind of way, these big boys were representing tings. Big time. Nothing could touch them. They were big and they ruled as the dominant group of vertebrates on this planet for a very long time. Well that is until 65 million years ago. This is when things got tipsy-topsy for the big fellows. An event occurred. Or a set of events occurred. No one is certain on this. But a huge asteroid could have hit the planet. Creating all sorts of kafuffles & disturbances in the planet’s ecology. Alternatively a whole load of volcanic activity occurred at about the same time. Quite possibly a combination of the two. Net result was catastrophic. If your surname remotely resembled dinosaur then you were Fuckt! The lot of them vanished or perished in a very short space of time. The point being that unforeseen events can impact a perfectly good working system. albeit apparently inexplicable at the time. But if you think about it more closely, it kind of makes sense. A 2 legged monster needing to eat vast quantities of vegetation for breakfast is not exactly the best or the most efficient way forward. It seems that nature was being a little short-termist here. So your legacy, if you are a dinosaur, is fossils. Lots of evidence that you once did!! If I was a dinosaur, I would have prepared a Plan B, just in case.
In the case of our social, political and economic structures, this is exactly what is going on before our very eyes, each and every day. Out of sheer laziness we have all chosen to ignore every single warning sign. By nature we hate change. Change means thought, work, hassle, conflict and disagreement. There is not a single system in this world that has accepted change with open arms or willingly. In natural History and Biology, Charles Darwin had a hard time. In Physics Newton and much later Einstein had their fair share of being slagged off. The same applies in philosophy, economy and social sciences. We do not do change unless we really must or by force most of the time.
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| Mate of big Scary Dinosaurs: DEAD!! |
There exists the most elaborate sociopolitical illusion in our lives. There are massive tremors rumbling just below the surface. Countries up and down different continents are having to duck and dive to make their papers look tight. Huge global corporate companies are gasping for the air that is called capital. So far they have managed to touch up their reports. To make it acceptable and believable. They can do that, because they can employ incredibly imaginative and "highly reputable" accountants, whose job it is to package bad numbers to look like good numbers. They also employ "highly reputable" law practices to ensure the legality of what they do is protected or better still covered up.
My job, your job and any other average person is to get up, work and generally play the game. Invariably we all find ourselves and our lives are inadvertently linked to the big global corporate brands.
Let’s have a look at utility companies that supply your gas or electricity who seem intent on cheating you, every which way they can. They are big big public companies with thousands of shareholders. Effectively less than a dozen companies control the whole of the Energy and telecommunications industries in the UK. You know the brand names, Eon, EDF, BT, Southern Gas and so on. When they need money, they issue more shares to more shareholders, that way they get access to even more capital. The bulk shareholding is normally with one or two chaps or companies.
The owners are not necessarily British. They can be German, French or Spanish or even American. We are a "global economy"! When you have a telephone query about your bill you get redirected across the globe to Asia, where it is cheaper to chat shit and solve nothing. An English operator charges a lot more money to chat the same shit and give you the same nothing. They all go out of their way to load your accounts to the maximum in a set of complex account deals, where only an experienced business person is likely to understand the details. They all charge you for invoicing you their bills, and charge you to pay their bills. Paper billing is not eco-friendly? A little fresh coming from the biggest polluters on the planet, don't you think? But if you let them dip into your hard earned cash by direct debit you won't be charged. But in case of an overcharge due to an "administrative error", you have to wait and call the Philippines to chat shit forever. Why do they need to do all this, because the market has reached saturation point. The premise is that of infinite growth. If they made a 100 million last year their shareholders expect them to make 110 million this year. Why do their shareholders expect this: because this is how they flogged the dodgy shares to them in the first place! They sell an issue shares at an inflated rate through future projections. Remember global corporate can see in to the future!! So just like our prehistoric dinosaurs they have the full run and control of the field/market. AS they are very big entities and as such very difficult to get any of them to account for any failures. Social responsibility does not even come in to the equation. These are private companies.
The owners are not necessarily British. They can be German, French or Spanish or even American. We are a "global economy"! When you have a telephone query about your bill you get redirected across the globe to Asia, where it is cheaper to chat shit and solve nothing. An English operator charges a lot more money to chat the same shit and give you the same nothing. They all go out of their way to load your accounts to the maximum in a set of complex account deals, where only an experienced business person is likely to understand the details. They all charge you for invoicing you their bills, and charge you to pay their bills. Paper billing is not eco-friendly? A little fresh coming from the biggest polluters on the planet, don't you think? But if you let them dip into your hard earned cash by direct debit you won't be charged. But in case of an overcharge due to an "administrative error", you have to wait and call the Philippines to chat shit forever. Why do they need to do all this, because the market has reached saturation point. The premise is that of infinite growth. If they made a 100 million last year their shareholders expect them to make 110 million this year. Why do their shareholders expect this: because this is how they flogged the dodgy shares to them in the first place! They sell an issue shares at an inflated rate through future projections. Remember global corporate can see in to the future!! So just like our prehistoric dinosaurs they have the full run and control of the field/market. AS they are very big entities and as such very difficult to get any of them to account for any failures. Social responsibility does not even come in to the equation. These are private companies.
Exactly the same applies to the commercial property market. Central London commercial properties are amongst the most valued in the world. But the bulk of the properties are under the control and ownership of less than a dozen companies/landlords. For instance, Regent Street, is all Crown Estates, Soho has a mix of landlords but mainly Soho Estates, Covent Garden is Capital and Counties in a number of disguises, Carnaby and West Soho is owned by Shaftesbury, Oxford Street is split between 2 or 3 owners, Peachy being the main one. So this particular market, namely, commercial properties, is also fully saturated by very few players controlling millions of square feet of office, retail and residential space in the heart of one of the world’s most important capital cities. Just like the big dinosaurs they are munching away at their tenants and anyone else, to retain the value of their shares to enable their lawyers and accountant remain as imaginative as a 4 year old boy. Like the dinosaurs they are simply too big to fail. These chaps work well in a symbiotic relationship with other but lesser and smaller dinosaurs. These lesser or smaller dinosaurs are their Global corporate tenants like Topshop, Jane Norman, HMV, Zavvy, French Connection, Habitat, Next , Nine West, Marks & Spencer, Woolworths and so on. Exactly half of the big dinosaur brands listed are no longer operating. Despite the symbiotic feed off and blood brotherhood that exists between the bigger dinosaurs and the smaller dinosaurs, failure became an inevitable event in their lives. We also have to remember that the smaller dinosaur brands are quite stupid like most medium sized scary dinosaur creature. Because they get all they want to sell real cheap via unregulated factories using child labour and outright exploitation and so on. And they still fail. Maybe we should view these as pre historic giant vampires bats. But they need to feed their bigger dinosaurs friends the controlled and closed market unrealistic rents. These rents are only sustainable if you are also a "Big Global Company". The net result is that you have this mono-tone cloned high street which is occupied by the same brands, forcing their products by eliminating choice. The very negation of a typical capitalist market economy is alive and kicking in your high street. The accountants and the lawyers make the future projections, the banks believe the bullshit, and the loans flow in. The shareholders wait for the rewards. The customers then end up servicing and paying the dinosaurs unrealistic rent and loans through buying their overpriced product or service, out of lack of choice. This is indeed the basics of the prehistoric food chain. All these guys have shareholders who have been lied to over and over again. Check American Apparel, can someone explain how you can operate whilst making $17 million of loses in less than 6 months. The answer is simple: bullshit via "reputable accountants" and more bullshit via "very reputable law firms".
Let’s now move on to any other industry sector, your choice, it can be anything. Finance and Banking, Building construction, Footwear, News and Media, Steel manufacture, Cars, Computers etc etc etc. You will again find no more than a dozen operators in each sector, dinosaurs, controlling and manipulating as much of the market as possible. They are all nearly unaccountable, except to their shareholders and board of directors. All doing exactly as they please without much regard for the end user, me and you. The psyche and ego is constantly telling them that they are too big to fail. We have power($$$ dinosaurs), we have friends, smaller dinosaurs. The perfect example of this was The News International (Sun, News Of The world, Sky etc) fiasco. The News Corporation controls over 42% of UK media. Yet not obliged to have any form of regulation to control the fucking monster. They control 75% of Australia’s media. Out of control dinosaurs? How rapidly did they have to shut one of their top selling Sunday News paper, errghh.???? I think it took less than 10 days.
The main issue to consider here is that Big Global Corporate Brands have evolved and come to exist and live through the most obscene and fuckt up mutation of capitalism. I cannot even call it imperialism as it is a new incestuous bastard beast of its own creation. They pretend to rely on the markets to determine prices when the market itself is far from being free and almost entirely under the control of very few Global Brands. This is classic Mafia tactics. They plunder, abuse, hide, cheat, steal and more to ensure that the very selected few who own the majority shares have a great time in bigger yachts, more cars, more private jets, more everything. So what happens when you have a dying dinosaur? They start screaming, don't they? Oh I am so gay, please help me? I must not collapse and die. Just look at my size. Because because because... Check Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland in 2009 in the UK and Fanny and Freddy in the USA.
In the past few weeks we have witnessed parts of this cataclysmic end game. Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, France and United States as well as The United Kingdom. All economically bankrupt. All morally debased. Because they keep printing paper and calling it money. Based on gold reserves which cannot be properly verified. Even their other dinosaur friends like International Monetary Fund cannot help for much longer. Credit ratings slashed. Over priced unaffordable housing halted. The comical President of Untied States said this only a few days ago: " This is the Untied States of America. We have always had a triple A credit rating and we will always have a triple A credit rating". If dinosaurs could speak millions of years ago, they would have said this: ..." we are dinosaurs. We run tings on this planet. We will always be running tings on this planet".
Idiotic dinosaur/ president. Talk about living in denial.
Market and share fluctuations are now irrelevant as far as I am concerned. Western Capitalism is no longer a viable option as the way forward for progress. Because, it is negating its very own fundamental principles, namely the principle of a free market which determines the price of any commodity through supply and demand. We have been shaking the big house from the supporting foundations for too long and the cracks that have been surfacing are now massive craters. It is hardly surprising to see the value of all national currencies drop so badly in recent weeks. It is also no surprise to see the continuous drop of share values in the stock exchanges across the globe. What did they actually expect? I mean how long can any charlatan perform his charlatanagans? They have redesigned and redefined capitalism, take note of the name, from capital to lending. I think we should call it Lendism. All linked to projected future performance and not actual performance.
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| Big Fossil remains of Capitalism. |
It is not your government who is governing you. But the combination of huge global entities with fake valuations far in excess of most governments GDPs. They have their boys all in place, the " reputable accountants" the "super squeaky clean" law firms to ensure the job of wealth control and political power is permanently transferred and remains with the selected and trusted few. As and when they come across some one who tells them, to pay for the commodities in something other than their printed paper, then they sell the idea that we must invade, bomb and kill the bastard. Reference is being made to Colonel Gadaffi insisting that the western consumers should pay for their oil in gold!! If the Saudi’s even remotely utter the same words, they will get the same bombs on their heads. As far as Big Global Corporates are concerned the lives of people is somehow of no consequence. They send their young men to fight for things they should not be fighting for under a cloud of deception. Immoral and inhuman. Of course President Obama means well. But he is not allowed to do well. He became an overnight communist for health care reforms!! As it directly challenged the private health care industry in the US.
I will be the first to admit that I am not for one moment suggesting any past Soviet/Maoist alternatives. That shit did not work. But that has nothing to do with the rest of the world suffering a miserable dinosaur like extinction either. Capitalism in itself has had many merits and has been failing for many decades. It gave progress through individual civil liberties. But capitalism as you know it is no longer the operator here. It is living on borrowed time, pun not intended. It has gone passed imperialism and mutated itself in to Lendism or Global Corporatism. Our supposed representatives lost control long ago. They have made sure that every single one of us works his back side to the bone until you can no longer stand up. Your mum, dad, sister, brother and cousin, friends are all running and working like nuts in order to survive or retain a respectable life style. They have no time to attend to their human needs. The dehumanisation of the human being is at play and causing major social issues across the globe. Then you wonder why a 12 year old is rioting and looting in my Beautiful Britannia! All these and more are the inevitable by products of a failing system. I suggest that all the thinkers, the doer, the movers, the shakers and the groovers get together and become resourceful again. Just to consider possible new ideas. The system has clearly doomed and failed in many areas, just like the dinosaurs.
My friends: It is Time to reflect, Time to revise, Time to examine, Time to debate, Time to realise and Time to admit and Time to accept. We urgently need to come up with alternatives progressive systems for the continued success of our species in future.
K Savage
August 2011
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